Installment #11: Finished.

Writing ByTrying My Hand At Writing A Novel

Jun 13

It’s done!

The first draft of my first novel is complete. 83,481 twisty, creepy words!

What an adventure. I have learned so much about the process and about myself along the way. Here are a few takeaways.

#1 — OUTLINING IS LIKE GOING TO THE GYM ON ABS DAY. Nobody wants to do it, but you feel super aggro afterward. Like you accomplished something extraordinary. You didn’t. You just cramped your abs, but it was necessary and you’ll feel the benefits later. Unless you’re like me and reward yourself with an ice cream sandy. Judge me lest ye be judged.

The only times I hit a roadblock was when I wasn’t clear where I was going. I wound up writing through those sections. At times those detours took me off course into unexpected territory that derailed the story or I discovered interesting new things that I ran with. But having a roadmap would have saved time and a shit ton of angst. I’m not sure that outlining would have 100% curtailed those rabbit holes since a certain amount of discovery is going to happen when you start to really get to know your characters and give them rich backstories and stronger goals than you do on a first blush outline, so I don’t think it’s entirely avoidable. But next time I will do much more thoughtful prep before starting, just to see if it helps.

#2 — SARA BAREILLES MIGHT BE A WITCH! How else could she know we need to “Say what you want to say and let the words fall out?”

Writing a novel forced me to be really intentional. When you put months and months of effort into a thing, you have to know why you are doing that thing. I had to repeatedly check in with myself to make sure that what I was writing was exactly what I wanted to say and the kind of statement I wanted to put out in the world.

For the record, I haven’t decided what I’m doing with the novel. It might sit in the cloud for a century and be discovered by my descendants and turned into a musical theater mash-up with Pippin. Since I will be dead I will just have to roll with it. Hopefully, they’ll make a bunch of money or life-extending credits or whatever goes for currency in the future.

End of sidebar.

#3 — SCRIVENER FEELS LIKE CHEATING, BUT IT’S NOT. I didn’t discover this nifty little tool until I had already started working and was many chapters in, constantly forgetting what I’d named a supporting character and slotting in XXX so that I could search for it later. Additionally, I would discover I needed to add in a bit of info and not be able to search for it by chapter so I did subheadings and descriptions, but even then I would forget what wording I’d used and then went “screw it, I’m 50k words in, I’ll figure it out later” so my manuscript is a bit of a mess, although mentally I know what fits where.

I kind of think we need to level the playing field and not be able to use tech tools at all. Like gladiators facing down an eight-foot mace-wielding foe, everyone writing a novel should be forced to duke it out old school. In fact, I vote for returning to the good old days when novels were written on parchments paper with quills. Then we’ll see who’s got the gumption to stick it out.

That said, once I found Scrivener, all of that was 1000% easier. So, don’t do what I did. Do what the experts tell you to do, join us in the 21st Century and get the software.

#4 — I’M A MAN KILLER. Yes, I killed a lot of men in this book in very gruesome ways. I’m still working it out with my therapist. All I know at this point is that my ex-husband may be due an apology.

All in all, this was an amazing and excruciating process. Everytime I looked at my word count I went “fuuuuuck, I’m only 700 words farther than I was yesterday?” HOWEVER, all that changed when I got near the end when I suddenly felt as though I had way more to say and was writing way faster.

Maybe I was getting better. Maybe I was just not editing myself like I had when I started. I still haven’t found a whole lot of synonyms for water, but I have discovered quite a few ways of saying “said”.

What’s next?

From here, I am going to set this aside and let it rest for a few weeks. I want to ruminate on the theme, if I’ve captured everything I want to say, let the characters breathe, and make sure that all of the plot points add up.

Then, I’ll head back in and tackle the rewrite.

Thanks so much for joining me on this journey.